<p>To answer my own question for anyone else interested, UMass Amherst’s merit awards to OOS students seem to range from about 2K to 10K. They seem to be very directly tied to stats. This is based on this year’s EA acceptance thread.</p>
<p>OP: Look into Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, which gives good merit aid, has a number of engineering programs, and has additional majors/programs if engineering isn’t a good fit after 1st year experience. Urban campus located near downtown, easy access to downtown and airports via subway system; many foreign students. Involved professors.</p>
<p>IIRC, the majority of UMass’s costs are not in tuition but other fees. Make sure you take care in calculating the COA.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad – you’re right. Fortunately they do list the non-misleading total of tuition and fees in their costs pages. It’s only the students who get “full-tuition” scholarships thinking that is meaningful who are misled. :-/</p>
<p>Sorry, I’m just checking back. Yes, the tuition/fees thing at UMass is annoying. You just have to look at the combined number for a fair comparison. The tuition is set by the legislature and havn’t been raised in years, the fees are set by the university and go up annually. My son gets free tuition because of his performace on the state MCAS exams in high school. It saves us a whopping $1,714 per year (still, I’ll take it).</p>